Boston.com has a very interesting quote from GM Theo Epstein who they met up with during the first day of the annual GM Meetings. They were discussing the importance of the $1.5 million saved through Tim Wakefield’s new deal:

“That’s important because there’s some things we want to do this winter and we don’t have a ton of room under the CBT,” Epstein said.

For those who aren’t in the know, the CBT is the competitive balance tax, also known as the luxury tax. Teams are taxed for every dollar they spend on total team payroll above this number. All tax is collected and then distributed to the rest of the league. Now, according to Tony Massarotti, the Red Sox currently have $109.5 committed to 2010 salaries. The CBT for 2010 is set to be $170 million. The way Theo was talking, it sounded as if they were looking to end up real close to that $170 million threshold. Why else would he seem so excited about the prospect of saving $1.5 million, just over 1% of last years total payroll?

If that really is the case, the Red Sox have approximately $60 million to work with. Even if they re-sign Jason Bay to a generous salary of $18 million a season, there is $42 million left before you start getting hit with any taxes. This opens the door for many different scenarios both through other free agents (ie. Matt Holliday, John Lackey, Rich Harden) or via trade (ie. Roy Halladay).

It is very possible that this entire thing has been taken out of context, but it would help explain why they would go through the trouble of saving $1.5 million with Wakefield and declining Alex Gonzalez $6 million option. I hope it is true, it would be nice to see the spending gap between the Sox and Yankees decrease a little bit.

- Chris